Posted on 12/09/2006 8:03:09 AM PST by stfassisi
I agree somewhat with your statement regarding holiness.
One of the many examples of holiness is provided us in Scripture as the Arc of the Covenant where two angels face one another, one representing His Perfect Righteousness and the other His Perfect Justice. Both are on the Mercy Seat, where the blood of the sacrifice of an unblemished lamb is presented by the High Priest as an atonement sacrifice. Within the Arc were the tablets of the ten commandments (the law broken), Aaron's rod that budded, and manna.
Holy doesn't so much mean 'like God', but is even better revealed to us in the Tabernacle and the Mercy Seat.
If one doesn't understand holiness, one of the first opportunities available for the most trustworthy truth is to simply study the Arc of the Covenant in Scripture through faith in Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to guide the believer's study.
God Bless.
But not all faith is based upon Christ.
Any faith not through Christ is unfaithful.
Only God is eternal, since he is uncreated. Angels are simple created spiritual substances, meaning that they have no parts. A being with no parts cannot be divided, and hence, destroyed. Once created, a simple substance will endure forever. Now, it is within God's power to annihilate or bring to nothing that which he has created from nothing, but since that which he has created is good in its very being, it seems that the annihilation of angels (even demons) would be contrary to God's justice. Regardless, we know from divine revelation that the angels will endure forever, in either eternal glory or punishment.
The human person, in contrast to the angels, is a compound substance of body and soul or matter and form. A compound substance can be divided or decomposed. The decomposition of body and soul represents death. But while the body proceeds to divide into smaller parts after death, the soul endures, since, considered absolutely, the soul is a simple (spiritual) substance.
Article 5. Whether the angels are incorruptible?Objection 1. It would seem that the angels are not incorruptible; for Damascene, speaking of the angel, says (De Fide Orth. ii, 3) that he is "an intellectual substance, partaking of immortality by favor, and not by nature."
Objection 2. Further, Plato says in the Timaeus: "O gods of gods, whose maker and father am I: You are indeed my works, dissoluble by nature, yet indissoluble because I so will it." But gods such as these can only be understood to be the angels. Therefore the angels are corruptible by their nature
Objection 3. Further, according to Gregory (Moral. xvi), "all things would tend towards nothing, unless the hand of the Almighty preserved them." But what can be brought to nothing is corruptible. Therefore, since the angels were made by God, it would appear that they are corruptible of their own nature.
On the contrary, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that the intellectual substances "have unfailing life, being free from all corruption, death, matter, and generation."
I answer that, It must necessarily be maintained that the angels are incorruptible of their own nature. The reason for this is, that nothing is corrupted except by its form being separated from the matter. Hence, since an angel is a subsisting form, as is clear from what was said above (2), it is impossible for its substance to be corruptible. For what belongs to anything considered in itself can never be separated from it; but what belongs to a thing, considered in relation to something else, can be separated, when that something else is taken away, in view of which it belonged to it. Roundness can never be taken from the circle, because it belongs to it of itself; but a bronze circle can lose roundness, if the bronze be deprived of its circular shape. Now to be belongs to a form considered in itself; for everything is an actual being according to its form: whereas matter is an actual being by the form. Consequently a subject composed of matter and form ceases to be actually when the form is separated from the matter. But if the form subsists in its own being, as happens in the angels, as was said above (2), it cannot lose its being. Therefore, the angel's immateriality is the cause why it is incorruptible by its own nature.
A token of this incorruptibility can be gathered from its intellectual operation; for since everything acts according as it is actual, the operation of a thing indicates its mode of being. Now the species and nature of the operation is understood from the object. But an intelligible object, being above time, is everlasting. Hence every intellectual substance is incorruptible of its own nature.
Reply to Objection 1. Damascene is dealing with perfect immortality, which includes complete immutability; since "every change is a kind of death," as Augustine says (Contra Maxim. iii). The angels obtain perfect immutability only by favor, as will appear later (62).
Reply to Objection 2. By the expression 'gods' Plato understands the heavenly bodies, which he supposed to be made up of elements, and therefore dissoluble of their own nature; yet they are for ever preserved in existence by the Divine will.
Reply to Objection 3. As was observed above (44, 1) there is a kind of necessary thing which has a cause of its necessity. Hence it is not repugnant to a necessary or incorruptible being to depend for its existence on another as its cause. Therefore, when it is said that all things, even the angels, would lapse into nothing, unless preserved by God, it is not to be gathered therefrom that there is any principle of corruption in the angels; but that the nature of the angels is dependent upon God as its cause. For a thing is said to be corruptible not merely because God can reduce it to non-existence, by withdrawing His act of preservation; but also because it has some principle of corruption within itself, or some contrariety, or at least the potentiality of matter.
Not to non-christians.
even to non-christians for no other can regenerate the spirit other than God the Holy Spirit.
There are billions of people on this earth that disagree with you because they do not believe in our God.
I really doesn't matter if every living soul on the face of the planet from eternity past to eternity future disagrees.
What matters is the faith that is provided by God Himself.
You are making less sense than before.
The significance of faith isn't that it is our thinking, but rather that from Scripture we are told all faith comes from God. The discernment comes from identifying the faith that is from God and the types of thinking which come from ourselves independent of God.
There are many people who associate anything religious, based upon a method of thinking, as being identifiable with faith. The Faith provided by God, though, is a trustworthy faith. Faith that is provided by God to the believer is a mode of thinking which is nonmeritorious of the thinker, yet places the object of that faith as God Himself and how He has provided the mechanics for man to have a relationship with Him.
It has been said that it only takes just a very little more faith, than absolutely no faith whatsoever, to have a saving faith. This is an outstanding check on our thinking when we study Scripture. If the basis of our thinking isn't as simple as a child in our thinking through Christ, then we might very well be thinking independently of Him. This happens easily due to our past scarred thinking processes, which were developed to create order out of chaos by our thoughts prior to our believing in Him. Such 'wrong thinking' might be very rationalistic and fleshly, but without placing our faith in Him, our reliance is on something less trustworthy which will ultimately be burnt up like hay, wood, and stubble.
Such an argument to those out of fellowship with Him, or without a regenerated spirit does indeed appear to be foolish because they are unable to identify with spiritual things. Such things are not independent of the flesh, body, mind, or soul because man was originally created to be whole in body, soul and spirit. Our old sin nature though naturally separates us from Him because of sin and i the incompatability of sin with perfect righteousness and the true living spirit.
There are many, many attempts to counterfeit man's entrance into the spiritual domain, but the spirit made by God is perfect by the only living truth through Him, not by our counterfeit of His true spirit. All faith is from Him, meaning all true living faith as He has revealed Himself. He doesn't have to include anything false in His grouping of things that are spirit, because He is by His immutable nature completely incompatible with anything false. His revelation, of what He has provided us, speaks in terms of His perfect Truth and reveals all such true faith is only and always provided by Him and none other. He is the source of all faith.
Thos counterfeit religions which attempt to emulate glandular feelings of emotion, or statements of rational doctrines without faith through Him, or structures emulating the geometry of spiritual experiences, or contact with the supernatural by telepathy, or channelling of other spirits all fall in the realm of false faith.
There is no need nor good to criticize such false faith, because the good that is provided is always available by His grace to all men. That grace, though, flows by His methods and decisions, and policies of grace, not by our interpretations of what we want, ie.e our volition.
This doesn;t mean though that we might not be able to perform good works which He will recognize. On the contrary He has created us to perform good works, which again are good by His standards ONLY if we perform those works through faith in Him. If we work independent of Him, we aren't necessarily the victim of any other person nor Satan, but in strong liklihood are merely exercising an independent volition which He has given us, again independent of Satan and God. Sin, therefore is merely the disobedience to His Will, a turning away from Him, a mere thought independent of Him, anything which is not through Him.
Now such thinking, even if in the performance of enormous worldly human good, still is PONEROS or good for nothingness if not performed through faith in Him. Such human good without faith through Him, by His protocols, merely results in temprary human good which is parlayed into evil by the Adversary.
Accordingly, it doesn't matter in the angelic conflict if evey soul which ever existed other than Christ or any other fail to exercise faith through Christ, because any such alternate faith fails to be the same faith of Christ (Rom 3:22-24) and will not stand up to the same faith only He has provided.
The billions of people who disagree with the faith of Christianity fail to recognize and identify the faith provided by God Himself.
Faith in one sense is a state of trustworthiness, in another it is used in the sense of Bible doctrine, and also in a fashion where the object of our thinking is nonmeritorious to ourselves because the object of our thinking is in another worthy of trust.
There are many forms of thinking which are not through Christ and those who build such systems of thought may refer to their thinking as faith, but such faith is unfaithful, because the only true faith is the one provided by the Living and True God.
The Angels in Sacred Scripture
Angels in the History of the Church
Angels - in Heaven, on Earth and in Hell
Catholic Q&A: Angels and Demons (Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer)
Question: “Are there really such things as guardian angels?”
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